Chapter 111
Wilkins, who had been intensely focused on his calculations while sitting at a slant, slowly raised his eyebrows.
Even in a situation where he was pushing his concentration to the limit, a small shadow kept moving back and forth in his line of sight.
Ignore it.
Be patient.
He tried to gather his scattered thoughts and return to the calculations, but ultimately, his resolve didn’t last long.
“Master.”
Unable to hold back, Wilkins put down his pen with a sigh.
Medea, who had been hovering around since morning and hadn’t left, lifted her head.
Her gaze was cold, asking why he was calling her without saying a word.
Wilkins brought his hands together and leaned forward.
“What is it this time?”
“Do I look like I have worries or problems to you?”
“Isn’t that the case?”
When Wilkins questioned her, Medea, who had been pacing the room with an air of urgency, suddenly stopped in her tracks.
With a calm expression as if to say, “Why are you only asking this now?”
“You’re spot on. Looks like you didn’t eat your age like shit.”
“Shit… I mean, Master, I’m genuinely curious. Why do you keep talking about shit every time you see me?”
With Medias’s increasingly elaborate vocabulary, Wilkins felt like he was losing his mind.
Her choice of words could knock out a powerful wizard with just a few phrases, which left him amazed and frustrated at the same time.
It seemed that as she aged, she wasn’t just increasing her magical power but also her vocabulary for tormenting others.
Medea, her face hardening, looked at her questioning disciple and slowly opened her mouth.
“It’s a term of endearment.”
“…Who refers to affection as shit? That’s an insult.”
“Isn’t it a term of endearment when grandmothers call their grandchildren little shits?”
“Well, that’s…”
“Oh, really? To think you’d see it that way. The first time I went to pick you up, your grandmother called you a little shit. So she was insulting you, huh?”
With just one careless word, his grandmother, who had raised him, suddenly turned into a foul-mouthed old lady.
Overwhelmed, Wilkins stammered, unable to articulate a proper response, as Medea tilted her head as if asking if he had anything to say.
Her chubby cheeks and large eyes seemed particularly brazen today.
‘…Just good at talking nonsense.’
It wasn’t surprising that he hadn’t won even once in their verbal sparring match over the years.
An additional loss was nothing to worry about.
“…I was wrong.”
Wilkins eventually apologized.
“Now you understand?”
With a snicker, Medea’s voice hammered in the final nail, and he felt tears of frustration mixed with sweat flowing inside him.
“So… what’s the issue?”
Medea, who had seemed ready to start pacing again, suddenly froze in place.
Wilkins looked at her with a weary expression, as if urging her to speak.
Medea, resting her chin on her hand, thought for a long moment before finally speaking, spoke slowly.
“I can’t understand.”
“What do you mean? Are you talking about the traces of dark magic you sensed recently?”
After Sierra had left, Medea had spent quite a while searching the mansion for remnants of dark magic.
Having struggled alone, she eventually brought Wilkins along to help search the place.
But they hadn’t found any traces of dark magic.
While the two of them were stalling, the traces had completely vanished.
Given that the Countess had certainly been brought down by dark magic, even minor traces were incredibly significant.
Wilkins silently admired that Medea seemed to take her duties quite seriously.
“Not that.”
“Then what?” Wilkins asked, tilting his head as Medea narrowed her brows.
“Why did you reject my offer?”
“Are you talking about Sierra?”
Right after Sierra returned, Medea had aggressively courted her.
She tried to persuade Sierra to become her apprentice and offered to share her magic with her, even saying strange things to win her over.
But Sierra remained unmoved.
“Master, as you know, Sierra is a businesswoman. More than 40,000 people in the Empire work directly or indirectly with the Brilloxens. Managing that huge number is no simple task.”
“What are you, stupid? You think I didn’t know that?”
“Stupid?”
Wilkins flinched at yet another addition to Medea’s vocabulary.
Medea, regardless of his reaction, squinted her eyes.
“I know all of that, which is why I offered to give her my magic without her needing to accumulate her own.”
“…Well, that was quite radical, I’ll admit.”
To a mage, mana was something that couldn’t be exchanged for anything else; it was like the source of life itself.
When one accepted mana, it was as if one of their body’s components changed to adapt to it.
So, mages invested a lot of effort and time to accumulate mana.
If someone were to hand over their mana completely, it was like handing over their life.
‘Now that I think about it, it is strange.’
Honestly, Wilkins felt just as puzzled.
It was none other than Medea.
This was the mana of a sorceress who had reigned at the top for centuries.
She was willing to just hand it over, and yet she was being turned down?
“Was my explanation insufficient?”
“You explained enough.”
“Then did my words make Sierra feel like she was in danger?”
Wilkins shook his head.
Medea looked frustrated at her disciple’s response.
To Medea, Sierra was a talent to be envied.
“This won’t do.”
“Where are you going?”
“I should catch her again and explain things properly.”
“You’ve only been turned down for a little over a day. If you try again, she’ll just dislike you more. You have to think about the person turning you down, too.”
“Don’t you know that for an old man who could die at any moment, there’s no future worth waiting for?!”
…Hearing Medea, who seemed shorter than him, refer to herself as an old man was quite the shock.
Wilkins sighed, unable to stop Medea, who was already moving her short legs hurriedly to leave the room.
He had to go intervene.
Just as Wilkins was contemplating this, the door suddenly creaked open.
“There you are.”
Sierra’s voice rang out.
Wilkins looked up to see Sierra entering through the door.
Medea’s eyes lit up when she saw Sierra, as if this was just what she needed.
“Great! You came just in time. I was here…”
“I brought the ancient document you requested. Please read it and return it.”
“What?”
“Oh! And please don’t make a copy. It’s legally prohibited. Well, good luck!”
Looking very busy, Sierra finished speaking without giving Medea a chance to respond and vanished quickly.
Medea, who stared blankly at the door that slammed shut, took a step back.
“What the…?”
Wilkins, approaching the stiffly frozen Medea, sighed.
He reached out, took the ancient document from Medea’s hand, and patted her head.
“I think you got rejected again, Master.”
“…”
Glimpsing the silent Medea, Wilkins slyly lowered his hand and rubbed her cheek.
“You really got rejected… cough!”
Wilkins, who had been teasing his master, doubled over when Medea pointed a finger at him.
“Hmph!”
“Guh!”
Medea stomped on Wilkins’s back as he lay on the floor, having been toppled over by her teasing, and then opened the door to leave.
Inside the room, only Wilkins remained sprawled out on the floor, punished for teasing his master.
* * *
Clap!
With the sound of the door closing, Fiorette’s attention turned.
She approached, placing the fruit basket she was holding on the table.
“Are you doing okay?”
“I appreciate your concern! I’ve been doing just fine.”
Even though Fiorette said this with a smile, the truth was she had been cooped up in this room for about a week.
After the Redborne incident, Fiorette had headed to Brilloxen as a guest, but that didn’t mean she could be left to roam freely.
After all, she had worked under Belietta, and besides, the Baron was still tied to Bozbourne.
Just because Fiorette had changed her mind didn’t mean that everyone would trust her completely.
In the end, they couldn’t throw her in prison or impose restrictions on her, so they had her stay in the room as a form of house arrest.
“I’m sorry. I wish I could let you go freely…”
“It’s okay. I expected this much and was prepared for it. You don’t need to worry too much.”
Unlike before, smiles often appear on Fiorette’s face now.
Her mouth and eyes, which used to be so stiff, now softened.
Wilkins hadn’t spent much time with Fiorette, but if she had changed, then she had changed.
At the very least, the gloomy aura of someone who seemed like they were about to die had vanished.
“By the way, have you thought it over?”
“…”
Fiorette, who had been relaxing her expression, hesitated for a moment and then offered a bittersweet smile.
From her expression, it seemed she hadn’t figured it out yet.
As she had said before, Fiorette had provided quite a bit of information regarding Belietta.
This included everything from the structure of Bozbourne to the secret organizations linked to it.
She shared details about Belietta’s character, the Duke of Bozbourne’s personality, and his private life, but much of that was already known, so it wasn’t very useful information.
“Fiorette, I know you’re worried and anxious about this. I also understand that it’s a sensitive matter. But I can’t give you all of my time.”
Fiorette had shared a lot, but she hadn’t disclosed the most critical information.
There was the contract Bozbourne had made with Rippleton to receive the corpses of beasts.
There was no information on what kind of research they had the sorcerers conduct using those corpses or what exactly that research entailed.
Since Medea hadn’t participated in that research, she had tried to obtain this information from the Magic Association, but the association had been unresponsive.
In the end, all they had left was Fiorette’s testimony.
“I understand your concern for Baron. But staying silent like this won’t solve anything.”
